Imperial Vengence, page 2
‘Majesty!’ one of the eunuchs said. ‘The wind is changing, we should retire…’
A low roll of thunder came from the north; the clouds were dark across the river, where the country of the barbarians stretched to the horizon. Before anyone could move, a gust of damp breeze swept over the tribunal, bringing the unmistakable reek of burning.
Fausta got up, coughing, her maids fussing around her. Constantine was on his feet as well; the entire imperial household stirred into motion. Above them, the long trails of smoke had backed and arched, trailing southwards. The canopy over the tribunal billowed and cracked in the breeze.
‘I think we’ve seen enough here,’ Constantine announced. Beyond the cordon of bodyguards the petitioners were already pressing forward, calling out their acclamations even as the smoke gusted around them.
As Fausta turned to her husband, she saw a single black smut whirl down from the air and fall upon his cheek. Constantine raised his hand, brushing at it irritably. A smear of dark grease remained upon his skin.
Moments later, the first heavy raindrops struck the canopy overhead. In the distance, the rain was already damping the fires on the riverbank. As the flames sank into hissing vapour, Fausta could see the charred stumps of the stakes and the blackened bodies bound to each one. In the haze of smoke and steam they appeared to be writhing still.
Part 1
Four Months Later
1
Germania, August AD 323
The first sun was just touching the fortifications on the hill crest when the Roman war trumpets sounded from the valley below. The brassy notes echoed, one blending into the next, and birds rose in clattering flocks from the misty beech forests that covered the slopes.
As the last trumpet blast faded, Castus shook the reins and urged his horse forward from the dense gloom beneath the trees. He looked up into the pale glowing blue of the dawn sky. Still cool, but the coming day would be hot. Tipping back his head, he touched his brow and muttered a prayer. Sol Invictus, Unconquered Sun, Lord of Daybreak, grant us victory… By the time the sun had climbed halfway to its zenith, he knew, the hill fort must be taken.
Reaching a low rise clear of the treeline where he could survey the slopes ahead, Castus hauled back on the reins. His mount was a big dark gelding named Ajax, restive and ill tempered but strong enough to bear his weight. Castus still missed his old horse, the well-trained mare he had ridden for years, but she was back in Treveris now, in the pastures of a well-deserved retirement. Raising himself in the saddle as the horse blew and kicked at the turf, Castus peered up at the fortification lining the crest of the hill. He lifted his mutilated left hand, the three remaining fingers held stiff to block the low sun, and scanned the enemy ramparts.
No sign of the defenders at first, except for the fading haze of their night fires; then he caught the glint of metal. Speartips along the rampart. Cries of defiance came rolling down the slope towards him, and the dull roar of a Germanic horn from somewhere inside the fortress.
Castus nodded to himself, satisfied. Two months before, the Brisigavi tribe had broken their treaties with Rome and raided both their neighbours, and the settled lands inside the frontier; the Roman troops advancing from the Rhine bridgehead at Brisiacum had already laid waste to their villages and crops. Now only their hilltop fortress, the seat of their king, remained. Soon enough the barbarians would learn the futility of defying the empire.
‘Looks strong enough on this side,’ one of the staff tribunes said, riding up alongside. The other eight men of Castus’s mounted staff followed, forming around him with the long purple tail of the draco standard stirring the air above them. ‘The gods grant the scouts were right about the eastern approach.’
Castus grunted in agreement. This was his first view of the fort, but the scouts had prepared a detailed report. At the top of the wooded slope that climbed from the valley there was a cleared expanse of rising ground, cattle pasture in times of peace. A ditch and fence marked the boundary of the fortification, but that was a minor obstacle. The slope beyond was studded with spiked pits and staked with sharpened branches. A hundred paces further were the real ramparts: a deeper ditch, backed with a palisade, and behind that a massive wall of heavy stones dug into the hillside, with a strong wooden bulwark lining the top. Anyone advancing against the fortress would be caught in the killing ground between the two ditches, exposed to the defenders’ slingshot and javelins.
But to the east, so the scouts had reported, the hill dropped steeply from the rear of the fortress, and there were no ditches or stakes. Thick woodland clung to the slopes, tangled with thorny bushes. Were the paths that threaded up the hillside really as navigable as the scouts claimed? Castus refused to think about that.
From his left he could hear the troops advancing from the valley. He turned in the saddle, looking back as the first column marched out of the dawn mist onto the open pastureland. The sun caught their standards, glowing on the gold eagles and the streaming draco banners, the images of the gods and the portraits of the emperors. Then the ranks of shields appeared, the big white ovals of the Octavani and the red of the Divitenses. Castus heard the familiar stamp of studded boots, the clash of arms and armour and the low growls of the centurions marshalling their men, and was filled with a profound sense of pride.
Castus had served in the ranks himself for many years. In his heart he was still an infantryman. When he heard the trumpet calls, the sounds of the marching troops, he felt an instinctive response: a surge of energy in his muscles and his blood. But his youth was far behind him; he was forty-seven years old, heavily built, his broad tanned face stippled with scars and his short-cropped hair grey at the temples. With his mutilated left hand he could never again grip a shield properly and stand in the line of battle. He was no common soldier now; he was a senior commander, comes rei militaris, companion in military affairs to Crispus, Caesar of the West.
Another wail of horns, then Castus heard the massed clatter as the troops deployed into their assault columns. He had four thousand men under his command: four strong legionary detachments backed up with Frankish auxilia and a force of cavalry. Enough to make the barbarians think the killing blow would come from this direction. And perhaps, he thought, they would be right.
‘Signal to the tribunes,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Let’s announce ourselves.’
The hornblower behind him cleared his throat, spat, then lifted his curved horn and sounded the command. The call repeated down the line, and a moment later the front ranks raised a shout. A volley of noise rolled along the slope from the infantry formations, the percussive clash of spears against shields gathering to an echoing din. Birds wheeled in panic in the dawn sky. Castus smiled tightly. That was more like it. He could see the motion along the enemy ramparts, the barbarians thronging to oppose them. Many of the fort’s defenders would have been up all night around their fires, drinking and boasting; they would be weary now, but still full of fight.
Every few moments, Castus flicked a glance across the eastern hills behind the fort. The stacked forests were still deep in blue shadow. No wink of light. Every man of the command party was doing the same. Castus was beginning to sweat: should he give the order to attack? How much longer could he delay? The knotted scar on his jaw itched and he scratched at it, rubbing his fingers through the grey stubble of his beard. Calm, he told himself. Wait…
A rider was approaching from the right, galloping fast with his cloak billowing behind him. Castus recognised him as he drew closer: Aelius Saturninus, a square-headed and soldierly-looking officer, tribune of the guard cavalry, the Schola Prima Scutariorum.
Saturninus saluted as he reined to a halt. ‘Excellency, all my men are in position. I’ve kept them well back, out of sight.’
Castus nodded briefly. ‘Make sure they stay that way. You’ll know when they’re needed. No sign of the signal yet?’
Saturninus rode a little closer. ‘Nothing. I’ve got scouts posted all around our perimeter.’ He peered at Castus, squinting. ‘You could have held him back,’ he said quietly. ‘He’d have listened to you, if nobody else.’
‘You think so?’
Saturninus grinned. ‘Our Caesar holds you in high regard! Everyone knows it.’
‘I tried my best.’
‘No man here would blame you if something happened to him...’
‘It’s not the men here I’m worried about.’ Castus made a sign against bad luck. He remembered the conference in the command tent the evening before, the young Caesar Crispus poring over the sketch map the scouts had prepared, tracing the routes of attack with a fingertip.
‘Tell me again about the fort in Britain,’ Crispus had said. ‘It was like this, wasn’t it?’
‘Similar, majesty. Not as big, I think.’ Castus had told the young man all about the attack he had led on the Pictish hill fort many years ago when he was only a centurion in a frontier legion. He could hardly have refused; Constantine had been in that fight too, and Crispus already knew the basics. Castus regretted it now.
‘But you made your attack up the rear face of the hill, yes? You scaled the ramparts on the blind side?’
‘We had artillery then, and incendiaries. And it was at night…’
‘And we’ll scale the slope here by night! Under cover of darkness. I shall lead the assault party, with a thousand men of the Lanciarii Gallicani in light order, and the auxilia of the Bucinobantes…’
‘Majesty, with respect, the hill on that side’s thick with trees and undergrowth. If they’ve got any sentries at all over there you’ll be spotted and pinned down…’
‘But they won’t be watching that side!’ Crispus had declared with an eager grin. ‘Because you’ll have assembled the main army over here, to the west, ready to launch a feint attack on the ramparts as soon as my force is in position. While they mass on the western wall to repel you, my troops will scale the defences to the east, burn the palisade and take the fortress from the rear.’
Castus had frowned deeply, peering at the plan, the teardrop shape of the hill fort scribed with charcoal. It was a classic stratagem, and not a bad one. The only problem lay in Crispus’s desire to lead the surprise assault himself. Years before, Castus would have insisted on leading it, but clambering up steep wooded slopes in the dark was hazardous even for a man half his age. Besides, Crispus wanted the glory. He wanted to be first across the enemy wall. And that desire for valour unnerved Castus more than anything.
In the last six years, Crispus had changed almost beyond recognition. When he first arrived in Gaul to take up the position of Caesar, ruling in his father’s name, he had been a boy of fourteen, gangling and soft. His interests had extended only to poetry and the teachings of his Christian tutor, and nothing had suggested that he had any aptitude for command, certainly not for war.
Since then, Castus could not deny, the young man had proved himself. Crispus had put aside his poetry and philosophy; now he studied only books of strategy and tactics, the Commentaries of the deified Julius and the Dacica of the deified Trajan, the exploits of Alexander the Great. He had led men into war, and fought on the field of battle. He surely did not realise the extent to which his officers guided him and shielded him, keeping him from the worst perils. Just as his capable civilian bureaucrats ran his empire, Crispus’s military officers had run his wars. Until now.
‘Caesar,’ Castus had told him in the command tent. ‘I have to ask you to reconsider. This attack isn’t for you, it’s too dangerous. Let me appoint one of the senior tribunes to lead it…’
‘No!’ Crispus had declared with a petulant snap, banging the flat of his hand down on the tabletop. ‘I shall lead it myself. My mind’s made up.’
Had Castus gone too far? Could he have gone further? He had clasped the young man by the shoulders, urging him to think again, and Crispus had shoved him roughly aside. Knocking back the rest of his cup of wine, the Caesar had paced from the tent. The conference was over, and Castus would have been risking open mutiny to try and change anything now.
So be it, he thought. Somewhere to the east the young Caesar would be getting his troops into position. The only hope of success, of Crispus’s safety, lay in driving a frontal assault against the western defences so hard and so fast that the enemy were overwhelmed. It would be costly, but the risk was too great otherwise. If Crispus were injured, if he fell in his vainglorious assault, Castus would be blamed. And whatever Saturninus and the other officers might think, the penalties would be harsh. Even thinking about that sent a prickle of dread up Castus’s neck.
A single assault, then, to take the fort. That, and a last-moment act of duplicity that he felt ashamed even thinking about. Guile had never been in his nature.
‘Excellency!’ one of the Protectores cried. He did not point, but only nodded to the east. Castus swung his gaze, blinking. A moment later and he saw the flash of light from the far hill, the sun reflected off a polished blade. One flash, then a second, repeated. The signal.
‘That’s it,’ Saturninus said through his teeth. He grinned. ‘Now – let’s hear some battle music!’
Castus nodded and motioned to the hornblower. ‘Sound general advance.’
Before the ringing notes had relayed along the front lines, the standards at the head of each column dipped and swayed and the troops broke into motion. The trumpet calls were drowned out by the thunderous crash of four thousand shields slamming into formation, the stamp of four thousand pairs of studded boots. Dawn mist still clung to the tussocked grass of the pastures, and streamed like smoke around the flanks of each advancing column.
Castus raised himself in the saddle. Sweat broke at the top of his spine and coursed down his back. His horse felt his agitation and began to toss its head, stamping and pulling at the reins. Fierce cheering rolled down the slopes from the enemy wall; there were men up on the ramparts now, yelling defiance and shaking their spears. A few of them hurled javelins, far too soon.
The columns closed in on the fort from the west and north-west, like the fingers of a clenching fist. To the south the ground was clear. Down there, at the narrowest point of the fort’s teardrop, where the main gate lay, Castus had ordered no attack. Always leave your enemy a way to flee. At least, so it might appear to them. Saturninus had already ridden back to join his men, the thousand cavalry troopers concealed in the wooded dip.
Now the head of each column had reached the first ditch. They flowed across it, barely slackening the speed of their advance, the rows of bright oval shields sinking and then rising again on the far side like the scales on the back of a huge snake. As the legionaries pushed on into the killing ground, smashing aside the first lines of stakes, their formations tightened into wedges. Shields rose and butted together into a carapace at the head of each column. They were in range of the missiles from the ramparts now, and already the first javelins and slingstones were arcing down at them.
‘Excellency, the eastern wall!’ one of the staff tribunes cried, pointing. Castus tore his gaze from the advancing troops and looked towards the far side of the fort. Dark smoke was uncoiling against the morning sky, and when Castus turned his head slightly he could make out the distant shouts of the sentries, the cries of battle. He cursed beneath his breath. Crispus’s assault had already begun.
No time for delay now. No crafty stratagems; any pause in the advance and the enemy would muster to hurl back the men from the eastern wall. Nothing left now but immediate attack, hard and fast and carrying all before it.
‘Double time,’ he growled to the trumpeter.
The horns picked up the signal, and a moment later the advancing troops surged forward, the men behind the locked shields breaking into a crashing jog as they approached the enemy defences. Castus stared after them, his teeth clenched and the reins wrapped tight around his fists. He knew what the men in those columns would be feeling now: the rush of fear and the thunder of blood, the darkness behind the shield wall punctured by blades of light, the rattle of missiles overhead, the weight of armoured bodies pressing on all sides; the sweat and the sheer driving exhilaration of combat.
Men were running forward from the columns, engineers hefting picks and mattocks, and they hacked and gouged at the stakes to clear a path to the enemy wall, while the javelins and slingstones rained around them. Castus saw the columns buckle as men fell, the bodies tumbling between the stamping feet of their comrades. Still the advance ground closer, but it was slowing now. The barbarians packed the wall above every point of approach, screaming as they hurled their spears, some of them heaving down rocks at the advancing Romans. Archers moved up between the assault columns, shooting volleys of arrows up at the defenders. But too few to make a difference. If only they had artillery… Even a dozen ballistae, Castus thought, would be enough to sweep the ramparts clear for long enough to gain a foothold.
‘Send the auxilia forward,’ he said through his teeth. The trumpet cried, and at once the mass of allied Germanic troops waiting in reserve raised a bellowing yell and began to charge up the slope in the wake of the legionary columns. At their head Castus could make out the red tunic and blond hair of Bonitus, the Frankish chief who had led his people across the frontier five years before to fight for Rome. Many of Bonitus’s warriors wore Roman equipment now, mail shirts and helmets, but their barbaric glee in warfare was undiminished.
Castus eased his right hand from the knotted reins, and drew the long broad-bladed spatha from his scabbard. ‘We’re moving closer,’ he said. ‘Ursio – guard my left.’
The Protector behind him saluted and moved into position. Flavius Ursio was a big man, almost as heavily built as Castus himself; despite his Roman name, his high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes clearly showed his origins among the eastern Sarmatian peoples. Not a great talker, but he was a ferocious fighter and Castus needed a good sword on his undefended flank.
